You could read the whole novel in the time it takes the film version of "Random Hearts" to get rolling -- or at the very least, you could read a major chunk of the book in that time.
Or maybe it just seems that way.But this lethargic -- or to be more blunt -- this dull dramatic thriller just isn't involving enough to warrant more than two hours of screen time. Even if it had been trimmed of 30 minutes, "Random Hearts" would have seemed somewhat flabby.
Perhaps what's most surprising is that its stars -- the usually dependable Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas -- can't make you care enough about what happens to their characters or even give us a reason to stay awake long enough to see the story through to its conclusion.
Of course, there's another culprit to blame here, namely filmmaker Sydney Pollack, whose direction lacks originality and the needed energy to make this mess work. If that isn't bad enough, he also shows rampant egotism by playing a supporting character himself -- one who gets a lot more lines than his talented supporting cast.
And speaking of the film's co-stars, any one of them would have made a more interesting lead than Ford, who stars as "Dutch" Van Den Broeck, a Washington, D.C., police officer whose life turns upside down in the course of a day.
First, his investigation of a fellow officer (Dennis Haysbert) goes awry, leaving him in trouble with his superiors. Then, the plane carrying his wife (Susanna Thompson) crashes into Chesapeake Bay, leaving no survivors.
The grief-stricken cop begins digging for answers -- but doesn't like what he finds. Unbeknownst to Dutch, his wife was carrying on an affair with the husband of New Hampshire congresswoman Kay Chandler (Scott Thomas), who was also unaware of their indiscretions.
Although Kay is reluctant to join him at first, the legislator finds herself drawn into Dutch's unofficial investigation -- and eventually into his arms -- even as she prepares for her re-election.
There is some room here to explore the grief of survivors, but too much of the film is overly solemn and virtually humorless. And Pollack's slow pacing certainly doesn't help, nor does his inability to coax even the slightest bit of warmth from his stars, who have zero chemistry together.
Also, the miscast Scott Thomas can't disguise her English accent for long, and Ford reads (or more accurately, mumbles) the majority of his lines in the same monotone as his blase "Blade Runner" voice-over.
Of course, it's not as if those lines are written very sensitively. In fact, the writers (Kurt Luedtke and a corps of uncredited scripters) have rendered Dutch as a jerk, and Kay isn't any more sympathetic.
"Random Hearts" is rated R for violent gunplay and a brutal beating, scattered profanities (including the R-rated one), simulated sex, a crude reference and use of some sexual slang, and very brief glimpses of nude photos (seen in the walls of a studio).